It is becoming obvious that autonomous robotic devices are able to function in ways that humans cannot. For example, an unmanned heavy lift drone can fly a mission in weather too rough for a piloted aircraft to fly in. It can also fit into tight canyons and places a traditional helicopter cannot. If you don’t believe us, check out the Griff Aviation Saviourfrom Norway.

Then when you add the drop release of medical supplies, flotation devices, etc. and you have so many combinations of ways that drones can outperform our traditional ways of rescuing people.

An Australian company recently made headlines when one of it’s drones performed an ocean rescue on it’s first day on the job, performing several minutes faster than a lifeguard could have, according to an article written by the Heritage Foundation. The Ripper company develops rescue pods that are dropped to a person in distress, by a drone. The pods include life rafts, thermal blankets, EPIRBS, and other lifesaving items. Visit https://thelittleripper.com.au for more info

UASTrakker just debuted the worlds first “EPIRB Tracking System” for drones at AUVSI in Denver. By integrating a wide band radio receiver with the Flight Computer, they have developed a world class system for drone navigation, capable of responding to signals on most major rescue channels. This type of system can speed up the location of people missing at sea or in the wilderness, by navigating a drone to them using traditional Personal Locater Beacon Technology. Check out www.uastrakker.com for more info on this Florida based aerospace company.

General Drones, from Italy, has a rescue drone platform called the Auxdron Lifeguard Drone. It locates a person in distress, drops an inflatable raft to them, stays and provides situational awareness to the rescue team until help arrives.

Chinese drone manufacturer DJI released a study in March of 2017 suggesting that drones were responsible for at least 1 life saved each week, globally. Click here to download the report, if you haven’t already seen it. They also sponsor a lot of research in the field of Search And Rescue.

The AUVSI Xponential Show was held in Denver this year. The weather was great for early May, and yes, we did get some snow, where we were staying in the mountains.

If there was one thing that seemed to prevail at the 2018 Xponential show this year, it was VTOL Fixed Wing Aircraft. There must have been a dozen or more agencies or firms that presented a VTOL Platform this year, with some in production for sale. The differences were in the way they transitioned into flight, or landed.

Some of the units land, inverted on the rear of the aircraft, others land on the belly and never rotate during flight. Still others use Tilt-Rotors to transition into flight.

The advantages of a VTOL Fixed Wing Aircraft include increased range, and better options for persistent surveillance or SAR Applications.

debuted the UASTrakker Search And Rescue, UAS Tracking solution, for persons in distress. It works by autonomously locating a Personal Locator Beacon, or Man OverBoard device that has been activated during an emergency. This lifesaving technology is expected to be available for sale by the end of 2018. See www.uastrakker.com for more information.

There were many new vendors displaying Helicopters, heavy lift drones, and new sensors galore. This is truly the best Show for unmanned systems technology on display.

The UAS Trakker LLC company announced today that they will introduce their new, potentially lifesaving, UASTrakker technology at the AUVSI Xponential Trade show, May 1st, 2nd & 3rd, 2018, in Denver, Colorado. Visit them at booth 3233B

The UASTrakker technology involves customizing a long range drone to use Emergency Radio Frequencies for tracking down a missing hiker, man-overboard or someone in distress almost anywhere, who uses a Personal Locator Beacon, (PLB), or other specific purpose Emergency RF Beacon. These Emergency Location Radios are manufactured by numerous companies like
ACR Electronics, McMurdo, Kannad, Microwave Monolithics/Wireless Concepts, Northern Airborne Technology (NAT) to name a few.

The UASTrakker Integrated Systems are mounted onto proven airframes, from standard drone manufacturers, that can carry the weight of the radio components. UASTrakker is currently in negotiations with several aircraft industry partners, and can deliver their system on a Multi-Rotor, fixed wing or VTOL fixed wing platform, depending on the user needs.

Data gathered by the drone is transmitted to the cloud, over LTE or Satellite modem, and will be made available through an APP to the Search And Rescue (SAR) team. The solution is built to include Microsoft Azure internet resources, making it scalable to any size operation, as well as capable of being integrated with many other emergency communication systems.

Further product development includes landing on a moving platform, such as a Coast Guard Cutter or troop deployment vehicle. This will enable the drone to be launched and retrieved from a moving vehicle, while at sea or in dangerous environments like combat.

Other uses might include aerial support of SWAT type missions, or a manhunt where the responders are on the move, by providing a “tag-a-long” drone that autonomously locates and then follows the 1st responder(s). This provides cloud based situational awareness of a mission, for a fraction of the cost of putting a mobile headquarters onsite, with the typical and expensive satellite uplink.

Even national parks could use this technology, by renting a PLB to hikers and visitors entering the park, and using the UASTrakker enabled drone to locate them if the beacon is activated. Depending on the size of drone used, a life preserver, supplies and medicine could also be delivered to the stranded person. The drone primarily provides the fastest way to get situational awareness, as well as being able to view helpful video and GPS data gathered during the flight, which will assist in the rescue efforts.

By installing the UASTrakker system on a heavy lifting drone, it is conceivable that a stranded person could be hoisted to safety from a place too dangerous for first responders to go otherwise, like rough seas or the side of a remote cliff.

For more information visit www.uastrakker.com or call 561-389-1490. We hope to see you in Denver when the debut of this exciting product, which was designed to enhance search and rescue, occurs.

A Triton Submarine was on display at the 2018 Palm Beach International Boat Show. This Annual show, held in March, engulfs the entire West Palm Beach Downtown Waterfront. It is the very best place to link up with Yacht Dealers, Manufacturers, Marine Suppliers, Local Repair centers, and Submarine manufacturers. Call 561-389-1490 to find out more about a Triton Submarine.

Many thanks to Informa Exhibitions for promoting the show here! We hope to see you there in 2019.

(Altavian is an aircraft manufacturing and assembly company located in Gainesville, Florida. ) Altavian recently announced that it was awarded General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule contract 47QSWA18D0008. This contract facilitates agencies of the U.S. government to acquire Altavian’s UAV products. Altavian is the first U.S.-based UAV hardware manufacturer awarded a GSA Schedule contract.

Altavian, Inc., a leading manufacturer of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems and components, announced on February 13th, 2018 that it is working with Northern Plains UAS Test Site (NPUASTS) to help test NASA’s Unmanned aircraft systems Traffic Management (UTM) system. Altavian and NPUASTS will work to develop technology related to UTM while a third partner, iSight RPV Services will provide flight test services for the project on the Nova F7200 small unmanned aerial system (sUAS).

NASA has been working with technology leaders in the sUAS industry to develop a UTM system that can help safely integrate drones into the national air space. A UTM is considered an integral part to regulating drones on a national level, as well as beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations.

Altavian is working to develop dual communication systems for the Nova F7200. Point-to-point radio frequency communication is the most common method for sUAS-to-operator communication and is in use by nearly every drone. This technology is well suited for high-rate aircraft telemetry or payload links (such as HD video) but has limitations when the sUAS is flown further away from the operator. By implementing a satellite link, the sUAS will be able to send low-rate telemetry messages back and forth to the operator anywhere in the world, and will no longer be limited in range by local radio frequency.

In parallel to this, Altavian will be updating its Ground Control Station software, Flare, to communicate with the updated UTM system. Altavian and NPUASTS have previously conducted flight tests with Technical Capability Level 1 in early 2016. These upcoming tests will be the third iteration of the UTM system. By integrating Flare with the new UTM system, NASA will be able to see where Altavian aircraft are at all times during testing.
The technology being developed could prove invaluable to preparing Altavian sUAS for BVLOS operations in the future. The project will run from now into March and April of 2018.

About Altavian, Inc.
Altavian designs and manufactures high quality drones to carry the best sensors into the toughest environments. Our drones feature modular systems to carry custom and integrated payloads to specialize any drone for any type of data. Our focus is on systems that collect data with the highest integrity and accuracy. Visit us at www.altavian.com.

About Northern Plains UAS Test Site
The Northern Plains UAS Test Site (NPUASTS) is one of seven Federal Aviation Administration UAS test sites in the nation. The mission of the test site is to collaborate with FAA and industry partners to develop, systems, rules and procedures to safely integrate unmanned aircraft into the National Airspace System without negatively impacting existing general or commercial aviation. For more information, visit npuasts.com.

There are a lot of options emerging that deal with the threats of rogue small UAS attacks, reckless endangerment of airport traffic, or other misuse. While there are numerous start-ups that suggest they have the best new ideas on drone tracking, not all have made it to the stage of production and availability for sale. Many are still starving for resources to complete their ideas, while giants like Intel and Lockheed actually get the contracts and sales needed to fund their research in these arenas.

The most prominent systems that are, or show the most promise of becoming, available today come from the following companies:

Aaronia Drone Detection System – http://www.aaronia.com/products/solutions/Aaronia-Drone-Detection-System/ German firm specializing in radio transmission equipment and Antennaes has a system that uses a 9kHz to 40GHz 3D Tracking-antenna to detect almost any Radio Controlled device, and illuminate it on a windows based GCS screen in real-time. Scale-able to use multiple sensor sites, radar, etc.

Department 13 Mesmer system – https://department13.com/mesmer/detects the standard communication frequencies used by small UAS, identifies the type of drone, and then mitigates the risk by sending commands to “Return to Home” as an example. Cost is estimated in the Hundreds of Thousands of dollars.

DroneShield – https://www.droneshield.com/ offers a Radio Jamming Gun, UAS Detection Sensor Arrays, and a completely autonomous system with sensors and a “Drone Cannon” to knock most RC equipment out of the sky by again denying them GPS, GLONASS or Radio signal from any band. ITAR

Liteye AUDS System – www.liteye.com AUDS is designed to disrupt and neutralize Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) Costs $1.5Mil to 2.2Mil USD per installation with visibility range from 9 Meters to 5Km These systems are military grade, and can mount additional sensors or even a modified automatic AR15 if necessary. Permits and ITAR definitely apply.

Dedrone Systems – www.dedrone.com offer single RF and multi-sensor detection products, cameras, software for a PC Groundstation, and even offer a Radio Jammer through a 3rd Party which should shut down most RC Hobby aircraft as it denies them GPS, GLONASS and RF signals. Once this happens, most hobby aircraft will automatically land themselves. This system is one of the more affordable to implement, and is modular.

Skysafe – https://www.skysafe.io/ is a 2 year old start-up that builds UAS jamming systems into jeeps and ATV’s etc. to allow ruggedized travel and use as a mobile counter UAS asset.

Theiss UAV Excipio Aerial Netting system – http://www.theissuav.com/researchanddevelopment/ is a drone that catches up to another drone and disables it by firing a net at it. This system can be adapted to work with other drone detection systems as a failsafe response to an incoming drone.

Openworks Engineering Skywall 100 Drone Net Bazooka – https://openworksengineering.com/skywall allows the operator to fire a programmable projectile at the drone to intercept and neutralize it with a net and parachute. Make in the UK.

The vessel “YARA Birkeland” will be the world’s first fully electric and autonomous container ship, with zero emissions. Operation is planned to start in the latter half of 2018, shipping products from YARA’s Porsgrunn production plant to Brevik and Larvik in Norway.

Named “YARA Birkeland” after YARA’s founder, the famous scientist and innovator Kristian Birkeland, the vessel will be the world’s first fully electric container feeder. YARA’s new vessel will reduce NOx and CO2 emissions and improve road safety by removing up to 40,000 truck journeys in populated urban areas.

YARA Birkeland will initially operate as a manned vessel, moving to remote operation in 2019 and expected to be capable of performing fully autonomous operations from 2020. The new zero-emission vessel will be a game-changer for global maritime transport contributing to meet the UN sustainability goals.

“As a leading global fertilizer company with a mission to feed the world and protect the planet, investing in this zero emission vessel to transport our crop nutrition solutions fits our strategy well. We are proud to work with KONGSBERG to realize the world’s first autonomous, all-electric vessel to enter commercial operation,”says Svein Tore Holsether, President and CEO of YARA.

“Every day, more than 100 diesel truck journeys are needed to transport products from YARA’s Porsgrunn plant to ports in Brevik and Larvik where we ship products to customers around the world. With this new autonomous battery-driven container vessel we move transport from road to sea and thereby reduce noise and dust emissions, improve the safety of local roads, and reduce NOx and CO2 emissions,”says Holsether.

A giant step forward for seaborne transportation

Geir Håøy, President and CEO of KONGSBERG.

KONGSBERG is responsible for development and delivery of all key enabling technologies on YARA Birkeland including the sensors and integration required for remote and autonomous operations, in addition to the electric drive, battery and propulsion control systems.

“By moving container transport from land to sea, YARA Birkeland is the start of a major contribution to fulfilling national and international environmental impact goals. The new concept is also a giant step forward towards increased seaborne transportation in general,”says Geir Håøy, President and CEO of KONGSBERG.

As a leading global maritime technology company, KONGSBERG’s integrated control and monitoring systems are already capable of providing technology for remote and unmanned operations. YARA Birkeland will benefit from competence and technologies developed across KONGSBERG.

“Developing systems for autonomous operations is a major opening and natural step for KONGSBERG, considering our decades of expertise in the development and integration of advanced sensors, control and communication systems for all areas of ship operations. YARA Birkeland will set the benchmark for the application of innovative maritime technology for more efficient and environmentally friendly shipping,”says Håøy.

About Yara

Its fertilizers, crop nutrition programs and technologies increase yields, improve product quality and reduce the environmental impact of agricultural practices. Its industrial and environmental solutions improve air quality by reducing emissions from industry and transportation, and serve as key ingredients in the production of a wide range of goods. YARA fosters a culture that promotes the safety of employees, contractors and societies.

Founded in 1905 to solve emerging famine in Europe, today, Yara has a worldwide presence, with close to 15,000 employees and sales to about 160 countries.

– Palm Beach Drone is pleased to announce a Distribution agreement with the Ukrainian company “UKRSPECSYSTEMS”, which will help introduce their line of unmanned, commercial duty, Fixed Wing aircraft, Multi-Rotor Aircraft and Geo-Stabilized Thermal Cameras / Sensors to the Southeastern U.S. and Caribbean markets.

Palm Beach Drone brokers the sales of premium brands of Robotic AUV’s , ROV’s , UAV’s and UAS’s, commonly called drones, to the Police & First Responder Industry, as well as the Agricultural and Commercial Markets in the U.S. , from it’s offices in South East Florida

UKRSPECSYSTEMS, was founded in 2014 in Eastern Ukraine, primarily to build drones for their armed services. This aerospace firm now also manufactures target tracking gyro-stabilized EO/IR sensors which are used by numerous other manufacturers and integrators, as well as their Fixed wing and Multi Rotor aircraft. Now this firm is pleased to offer it’s products to the Global market.

Palm Beach Drone, which distributes Robotic Drone technologies, training and related services through many southern commercial Markets, is now bringing another real value to it’s First Responder and Commercial Markets. The PD-1 fixed wing plane, which offers 10+ hours of endurance, is used almost exclusively by the Ukrainian Army, as a reconnaissance drone. UKR Spec System products are also flown on many other continents around the globe by Firemen, Paramedics, Police and Municipal governments.

UKRSPECSYSTEMS Airframes, upgrades and repair work will be available through Palm Beach Drone distributors and retailers. Once an investment is made, UAS owners need to have local and affordable repair centers when, inevitably repairs and replacement parts are needed. Palm Beach Drone repair centers will have access to Factory Trained staff providing OEM parts and professional repairs to the UKRSPECSYSTEMS products. The customer will have access to Web Resources and telephone diagnostic service that can help users pinpoint hardware and software problems. Onsite service and support will also be available for many issues.

Palm Beach Drone, based in Lantana, Florida, was founded in 2015. It’s Affiliated with droneSmart US, the company that provides Distribution of Robotic Systems, Marketing Services & Web Technologies worldwide.

Drones are increasingly being used by mechanical contractors to study the thermal signatures of commercial buildings. The advantages of performing a thermal study with a UAS, (Unmanned Aerial System), are the time saving, and accuracy of the study. Drone flights can record the elevation and GPS coordinates, as well as video or images of the surface(s) being studied for use later in measuring, or even constructing a 3D model of the data using a program such as https://pix4d.com/

Radiometric, Infra-Red, NIR, Multi-Spectral and Lidar are some of the types of sensors that can save you countless hours of engineering analysis. These devices can range in cost from a few hundred dollars, to well over a Hundred Thousand dollars, depending on it’s intended use, and need for accuracy.

A drone can fly these sensors just a few feet above roof mounted equipment to tell whether fans are running, compressors are overheating and observe corrosion or other deterioration on the equipment. A drone can do this much faster than a person with a ladder could dream of, and document it with Video that can be analyzed now or later, in the cloud.

A drone can detect moisture and heat in areas of the building’s roof, mansards and exterior walls, which may indicate leaks or other factors that need to be addressed, in order to provide the proper climate control, and rooftop maintenance.

While a person with a standard thermal image camera can capture much of this data, more advanced radiometric sensors can actually record the exact temperature variations, and log them individually, so that the drone operator and mechanic can tell the difference between inlet and outlet temperatures on chillers, for example, within 1 degree of accuracy. Radiometric data will also help identify motors and compressors that are overheating, or inefficient cooling systems before they fail.

Roofers, as well as mechanical contractors, use aerial drone data to see moisture evaporating from failed areas of a roofing system, and leaks of air or moisture at the rooftop penetrations, in ducts and soffits. It is often better to obtain a drone aerial video, and images that are geo-referenced, than it is to have an in-person evaluation. One reason is you can use numerous people to evaluate the visual cues available from data that is collected and assembled into a 3D model. Another is the ease of measuring and estimating from the computer research-able data.

Property Managers are beginning to use drones for inspection of roof systems, and equipment that is difficult, or dangerous to inspect; like HVAC systems, and roof mounted communication equipment. High definition drone data enables them to discuss solutions over a video-conference call, during or just minutes after a flight. Once data is uploaded to a cloud server, software analysis makes it possible to map out problems, measure areas affected, identify equipment serial numbers, and even send out alerts or e-mails to responsible parties if a dangerous condition exists.

Using a drone survey, of a rooftop, enables the owner or operator and contractor to fully understand a maintenance task, cleaning process or failure before sending a technician up. This in turn, dramatically reduces the amount of time spent in a dangerous work-space. Pre and post repair drone flights can provide lasting proof of conditions that were found and corrected; a task that used to require a helicopter or airplane to accomplish.

Programs and Apps like DroneDeploy and Skyward allow the operator to plot out a mission using an image from google maps, or similar. The mission may require the drone to take High Resolution photos every 10 feet over an area that covers 10 000 SF and after a few mouse clicks, the mission is uploaded to the drone, which then flies the mission autonomously. GPS, altimeter and compass readings are all geo-tagged onto the images for precise location and measurements to be based on. The mission can be saved and repeated by the aircraft over and over to provide day to day comparisons of progress or installations.

Drones reduce maintenance costs significantly by collecting more accurate data,; quicker than humans can. That translates into less man hours for diagnosis and less downtime for equipment which often equals money saved for both contractors, and their clients. Using a drone to perform these aerial inspections can also lower Workers’ Comp insurance costs, and reduce injuries on the job.

A drone with a thermal camera costs around $10-12,000, or maybe more depending on the equipment selected. Check out http://www.ukrspecsystems.com/pc-1/ as an example of an affordable Day/Night system. When you think about how many job-site climbing injuries can be prevented, this system pays for itself very quickly.

Drone related laws are very much affecting the commercial use of drones, and are constantly evolving. Anyone who wishes to use a drone commercially needs a Remote Pilot Airman Certificate (RPA) or another type of Pilot license with additional endorsements; information regarding this FAA guidance can research it by clicking here: https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/fly_for_work_business/becoming_a_pilot/

Use of a drone brings with it issues regarding privacy and permissions. Be sure to check with your legal team and the clients staff onsite to make sure every one is aware of, and approves of the use of a drone to Survey/ Surveil the property involved.

Each year the AUVSI Xponential Conference is held at a different location. This year, it was Dallas, Texas. What remains a constant is that new autonomous technologies are usually introduced there. Things like unmanned helicopters, pipe crawling robots and systems for managing the terabytes worth of data being gathered by unmanned systems.

Some of the exhibitors are firmly planted in the industry like Lockheed Martin, a defense contractor for the U.S. Lockheed martin is probably best known for the fighter jets that they produce. So it was interesting to see the land based technologies they are developing, like unmanned ground vehicles that can re-supply troops or act as transport vehicles.

Some of the robots are well placed in manufacturing, like Baxter, from Rethink Robotics; shown here. Each year, however, these familiar faces are showing up with new tricks and capabilities, some of which take advantage of Artificial Intelligence, and advanced sensors. The latest developments include speech and facial recognition functions, intended to improve human interactions with these machines.

Small is not a term that fits every vendor. This Norwegian made MR can lift 150 lb payload; Griff Aviation makes even larger ones that can carry 400-500 lb or more. These systems are intended for heavy lift operations like rescuing a person from the ocean, or troop supply missions.

Other vendors like UKR Spec Systems are competing heavily in the commercial market for Small UAV’s like this Airframe; The PD-1 which is similar in range and options to the Penguin C, but for around 40% less cost.

Even consumer electronics companies like Samsung have products emerging that will change the way we think of robotic assistants. Check out this vehicle designed for parking lot security, mall security, etc. In addition to being able to raise and lower a Boom Camera, this Autonomous vehicle includes a Call button for emergencies so the operator can carry on a 2 way conversation with patrons in distress.

We can hardly wait for the 2018 AUVSI Expo, which is to be held in Denver next year, from April 30th until May 3.

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Palm Beach Drone Blog News & Events

We write posts about drones, and robotic systems. We write about tele-presence systems, photography and Thermal Imaging. Basically we cover South Florida UAS, AUS, ROV and Robotic news, developments, Company Bio's and events.
If you have a suggestion, would like to contribute, or become a columnist, send your thoughts to
editor@palmbeachdrone.com

We represent the Brands Sci-Aero and Trtion Subs to Palm Beach and all of South Florida, including the Florida Keys, Key West, Key Largo, Marathon Key and all of our friends in between.

Watch Palm Beach Drone for news and product announcements, as we are becoming the Strategic Partner or Distributor of some of the most exciting Brands &Companies in the Robotic Aerospace sector.

As one of the first U.S. Robotic System Import/Export Companies, we also take Education and Training very seriously. We partner with some of the best Instructors and Schools from around the globe, some of whom are members of the firms we represent and provide their own certification processes, in order to best assist our client in learning the aircraft, and how to operate it safely.